Know the Difference Between SEO and SEM

At Tribute Media, we are often asked questions regarding Web Marketing—weird right? As experts in our field, we find it a responsibility to educate not only our clients, but the general public as well. Any time we can do someone a service by teaching them something new about marketing their business online, it’s a job well done.

Something that we run into quite often is a lack of understanding between the basic principles of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). These are two very important terms in the world of Internet Marketing and can mean a lot of new traffic for a business. Not to get all philosophical on the situation, but we can confidently postulate that all SEO is SEM, but not all SEM is necessarily SEO. A better way to say it would be to consider Search Engine Optimization as a component of your overall Search Engine Marketing efforts. There are other components such as Pay-Per-Click Advertising that also exist within the scope of SEM and don’t contribute in the slightest to your organic search ranking.

We have broken down these two terms for you so that you can better understand and distinguish the difference.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)- This term either scares people or elicits visions of a “Web Guru” that’s way too full of himself, telling you exactly what you “need” to be doing to be guaranteed the top spot at the party that is Google’s Search Engine Results Page (for more information on this so called “Guru”, click here).

A better way of explaining this term can be summarized by saying it’s the process of gearing your website toward achieving better results on Google through ORGANIC search. This means that you’re not paying for results. You’re simply letting the Search Engine Fairies do their thing by reading the information on your site, placing you on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) where they see fit.

The different constituents of SEO are numerous but the basic idea is to have great content, a good amount of quality back links, and on-site optimization that search engine crawlers (or fairies, whichever you like best) love. The better your content and the more popular you are in Google’s eyes, the better your site’s chances are to achieve a high ranking in organic search results.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)- As stated earlier, SEO is a component of SEM, but there are other factors that comprise a company’s SEM strategy. The basic premise behind SEM is that its sole purpose is to gain a higher visibility on search engines, whether this is via organic or paid traffic.

That’s where Pay-Per-Click advertising comes into play as it allows companies with the right budget to get premier ad placement for certain keywords. Google’s version of Pay-Per-Click advertising comes in the form of its Adwords platform, which has pretty much set the standard for SEM everywhere.

How do they do it? Google has the luxury of housing massive amounts of data that all contribute to how much a company will need to bid to guarantee a top spot for one of their ads. Obviously, the top spot on the first page for a certain keyword is going to pretty pricey, and the big boys like Amazon and WalMart get into the mix. There are also more specific keywords that can be targeted geographically that the little fish also get a chance to get a piece of.

So what’s the takeaway? SEO is unpaid and solely uses information found on your website. SEM, on the other hand, takes both SEO and paid search results into account.

Still have questions? That’s ok because we’d love to answer them. Contact us today!

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In 2018, there's no doubt you have many choices when it comes to web design and web marketing services. Your middle schooler probably knows his way around CSS and HTML and every college kid is a blogger. The problem is, a site that looks hot but doesn't have well-thought out strategy, is like a certain reality show family we can't name for legal reasons: pretty, but worthless.

The difference between a web site and a web strategy is something that the experts at Tribute Media have mastered. Put us to work and we'll create a web strategy that will help you generate leads and grow your business.

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